Captain’s Corner: Dave Zalewski

The Tampa Bay Times

Dave Zalewski

Recent high winds left the water filled with sediment near shore requiring us to direct our efforts further offshore. The water temperature has dropped into the mid 60’s chasing the bait fish and their predators south for the winter. There will be small pods of both kingfish and Spanish mackerel passing through our area for the next couple of weeks, but they will be difficult to specifically target and catching them will be opportunistic. The deployment of a stinger rigged flatline with either a frozen or live Spanish sardine may produce both kingfish and mackerel while bottom fishing in any depth. These stragglers will be hungry because of the lack of large schools of baitfish and will be attracted to the activity produced by bottom fishing. The pressure change from bringing up fish from the depths will often cause them to expel their stomach contents creating a chum slick throughout the water column. We will be targeting the 60 foot depths, which will give us the opportunity to catch white grunts, mangrove snapper, Lane snapper and both red and gag grouper which will be feeding heavily to prepare for the next several months without the large schools of bait that are present in the warmer months. We will be going offshore with the full arsenal of baits which will include frozen squid and sardines, live pinfish and some live shrimp. Because the metabolism of the bottom fish slows down in the winter months it is best to start with dead baits and wait to drop the live ones once the feeding activity begins.